One of the characteristics of an academic is the ability to detach oneself from sentiments in the analysis of facts or issues placed before him. For a journalist, it is said that facts are sacred while opinion is free. But any opinion derived from hearsay instead of facts becomes jaundiced, especially when it is tainted with hatred or envy or jealousy. Such an opinion becomes even more ludicrous when it is procured by a third party for the sole purpose of denigrating someone’s image. Before now, I used to think that the sentence “ignorance is a disease ” was one of those lines that secondary school students employed to build their vocabulary and mastery of English language. But after reading the pugnacious article by Anthony Iwuoma in the Sun of Monday, August 26, 2024, I now believe that ignorance is truly a debilitating disease for which no cure currently exists, especially when it is self-inflicted. Such a disease even becomes cancerous when the sufferer lives in self-denial just to justify the peanuts he was paid to execute a hatched job.
If Antony Iwuoma, in the article entitled: Hope Uzodimma preachment lecture: facts and farce” had at least pretended to be objective with facts at his disposal, the venom he spewed against Governor Hope Uzodimma would have been tolerable. For a man who sought to situate his critique of the lecture delivered at the Michael Okpara Leadership Prize event in Abuja, the haste with which he floundered to the Supreme Court judgment on Imo for 2020 and that of last Friday, completely betrayed where he was coming from. With that mindset, nobody expected anything less than the convolution of lies and half truths he dished out with shameless magisterial finality. It was Ola Rotimi, in his classic play ” The Gods are not to blame,” that posited that in the gathering of fowls, the cocroach can never be innocent. To those who lost the governorship to Hope Uzodimma, nothing can ever placate them, hence the current bashing through a proxy war.
Before the final judgment of the Supreme Court that Friday, the governorship candidate of Labour Party in the election of November 11 , Athan Achonu, had boasted that he would be proclaimed Governor based on the fictitious figures he was bandying around. This speculation was fueled by a contrived finding by who knows who, suggesting that there was a case of over voting in the election. Of course, the Supreme Court knew better than believe those sentiments. It went ahead to affirm Uzodimma as the duly elected governor of Imo State based on the facts of law. Anthony Iwuoma became so embittered because his brother, Athan Achonu, lost his deposit, so much so that he, too, lost every sense of objectivity and decency. Blinded by so much envy and jealousy, he hastily churned out the tissue of lies and fiction in his coloum on Monday. Very pitiable indeed.
So, when Iwuoma wept that the Okpara Foundation honoured Uzodimma with the Premier’s Gold Plaque Category award, he was merely reading the Book of Lamentations handed to him by his paymasters He falsely claimed that many voters were still hiding in the bush when INEC declared Uzodimma the winner of the governorship election. But he failed to see the thousands of other voters who patiently cast their votes on the day of the election and loudly celebrated the announcement of Uzodimma’s victory. Because he was nowhere near the polling units on election day, he could not see that his loquacious Labour Party candidate brother could not even mobilse party agents at the booths.
His grouse that Uzodimma was not practising what he preached and therefore was not fit to either deliver the lecture or earn the award can only come from a jaundiced and prejudiced mind actuated by malice. Need I remind him that the Sun Newspapers that provided him the media space to engage in public discourse honoured Uzodimma with the best governor award three years ago. Why did he not condemn the award then? Actually, what Iwuoma has done is to wittingly urinate into the well from which he drinks. As the late M.K.O. Abiola once said, only fools can do that.
Indeed, I doubt that the man was near the Musa Yardua Centre, Abuja that day. If he was, he would have heard the Chairman of the Michael Okpara Foundation, Omekannaya Uzodimma Okpara declare that the Imo state Governor is a replica of his father in his leadership style and based on his selfless service to Imo people as evidenced in his quantum achievements in the state.
If he was not also actuated by pecuniary motive, Anthony Iwuoma would have noticed the reason the organisers gave for conferring that award on Uzodimma. The letter clearly stated that Uzodimma was being given the award ” for his vision and his programmes for good governance and development in Imo state which are in sync with the impactful spirit and development ideals of Dr Okpara “. Iwuoma”dismissive conclusion that Uzodimma did not deserve the award is a gratuitous insult on the board of Michael Okpara Foundation, which includes reputable people of integrity, who are more educated,more refined and much more knowledgeable than him. It is also an assault on the integrity of the body in charge of the Sun Awards which had earlier recognized the same qualities in Uzodimma.
Again, if Iwuoma’s brain was not hijacked by his aforesaid motive, he would have also read what Uzodimma said about his stewardship and how his prosperity agenda encapsulated in reconstruction, rehabilitation and recovery has a lot of similarities with the developmental initiatives of the late charismatic premier. But living in denial, he accused Uzodimma of leadership failure and having done nothing to add value to the infrastructural landscape of Imo State.
As a disgruntled member of the opposition in Imo state, Iwuoma could be pardoned for his mischief in denying the verifiable achievements of Gov Hope Uzodimma in the last four years. But nobody should pardon him for his base ignorance not helped by intellectual laziness and intentional culpability in the tarnishing of the image of an innocent man whose only crime is that he roundly defeated his kinsman in the November 11 governorship election. If his intentions were actually pure, he could have visited the Imo State website to verify those projects, or better still, he could have visited Imo state to physically see things for himself. Unfortunately, he did none of these.
Lately, the Igbo intelligentsia have been worried about the rate at which we are losing our sons and daughters in Lagos and other states because they hardly visit home. Some of them have actually lost their identity and, therefore, are ignorant of happenings at home. Some of them claim that the East is not secured, but more people are being killed in the North and West as a result of insecurity than in the East. It appears that Iwuoma is among those who will need a guide to be able to locate his homestead whenever he finally decides to visit home. Otherwise, there is no way he would have failed to notice the Owerri-Okigwe Road, which for years had defied a solution but which Uzodimma recently fixed to the admiration and appreciation of everyone. This road transverses his Mbano home. If he had visited home recently through the Imo Airport, he could have passed through more than five important roads rebuilt by the governor. Mere asking questions would have fetched him the answer that Uzodimma has built more than 100 solid roads since he assumed office in 2020, including the dualization of the Owerri-Orlu road. The various roads, including their measurements, and the amount expended on them are on the Imo state website. Iwuoma, rather than do his research, chose to disgrace himself by churning out a reign of baseless, incredulous lies.
Because of his intentional blindness and bias, he does not know that currently, the Imo State government under Hope Uzodimma is funding three universities in the state. He inherited one and added two. This is in addition to a polytechnic and one college of education and colleges of nursing and midwifery. Each of the political wards has a brand new primary school equipped with modern facilities, just as the secondary schools across the state have received a face-lift with modern laboratories for science and technology. Most importantly, the teachers have been motivated through regular payments of salaries, while Imo was the first state in the southeast to raise teachers’ retirement age to 65 from 60. Yet to Iwuoma , nothing is happening. If Iwuoma had made just a little effort, he would have found out that Imo state now ranks the most literate state in the country on the literacy index. He would have also found out that Imo state students top the list of admissions for professional courses into the nation’s tertiary institutions. Why?. Because of the huge investments the Uzodimma administration has made in the education sector.
Even the transformation of the Imo State State University Teaching Hospital, Orlu from its comatose state, the revitalization of Imo Specialist Hospital, Umuguma and the building and equipping of three new hospitals are no laudable achievements for Iwuoma. Therefore, Uzodimma doesn’t deserve the Okpara award.
Because ignorance is bliss to Iwuoma, he can not comprehend what it means to attract investors to Imo State, including those in the oil and gas sector. It is indeed beyond his intellectual capacity to understand that the dredging of Oguta Lake to the Atlantic ocean, which Uzodimma initiated, is already yielding dividends in that respect. He is also not aware that the Imo state special free energy trade zone is already on. He will not know that tens of investors have already signed MoUs with the Imo State government to set up shop in the free trade zone in the oil and gas because the federal government has granted the state a gas free processing zone in Oguta. For a man who hardly visits his state but relies on handout from political liliputians, Iwuoma actually deserves our pity.
Like the doubting Thomas that he is, an arrangement would be made to present to him the beneficiaries of the Skillup Imo project who have received digital skills, empowered by the state government and are doing well in some overseas countries and even in Nigeria now. Because he is also out of touch with what is happening in his state, Iwuoma would not know that Adapalm Nigeria Limited has started operations after 20 years of being in the coma. Now , many Imo youths are working there while the businesses of palm trees farmers are booming. He won’t know about the Acharubo farm settlements at Emekuku. He can’t even recall how Ekeukwu Owerri has been transformed under the urban renewal programme of Uzodimma, nor has he heard that Owerri now enjoys potable water from public taps – the first time in 15 years.
As for insecurity, Iwuoma should ask his paymasters about it because they are the ones fanning the flames of insecurity in the state. It is on record that most of the victims of insecurity in Imo state are supporters of Uzodimma or those who have spoken out against the killings. Uzodimma”s personal house in the village was even attacked. Mercifully, the federal government and the security agencies have helped the state government to arrest the menace. Those who wanted to make political capital out of it failed woefully. But, mark my words, the perpetrators, their sponsors and those sympathetic to them in one form or the other, in fact even vicariously, would answer to God one day.
My advice to Iwuoma and his sponsors is simple. When next time you want to critique an academic exercise, have your facts ready so as not to appear like a an uninformed pedestrian. My pain is that such a reputable newspaper like the Sun allowed a political opponent of the Imo State government to use its valuable space to masquerade as a columnist. Due diligence should be applied in the area of gatekeping before the newspaper is devalued by charlatans who are engaged in personal battles.
Emelumba is the Imo State Commissioner for Information, Public Orientation, and Strategy